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THE LAW LOFT
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2001

SPECIAL ALERT

 FAST TRACK NOW
SLATED FOR HOUSE VOTE
BY NOVEMBER 16

WHAT IS FAST TRACK?

Fast track authority, aka trade promotion authority is legislation which brings future trade legislation to the floor of the House and the Senate, after robbing members of both bodies of their right and duty to design and control that future legislation for an up or down vote without any amendment. Because trade bills brought forth under this system are always lengthy and arcane, while containing at least something that every member of Congress wants, passing fast track is much like giving the administration a blank check to negotiate and pass legislation without meaningful participation by either Congress of the American people. Fast track was used to pass the North American Free Trade Agreement and create the World Trade Organization along with its attend! ant agreements.

WHERE WE ARE NOW:

Dennis Hastert, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, has announced that he intends to bring the fast track bill to the floor of the House by November 16.

WHY THE TIMING IS INTERESTING:

The timing is very interesting here. Although the House Republican leadership and business groups estimate that they are still somewhere between ‘a couple of votes short’ and 50 to 60 votes either short or not guaranteed, as of Monday (per today’s Los Angeles Times) both the President and Speaker Hastert have decided to bring the bill to the floor within the next 9 days.

Why?

IS THIS A DIVERSIONARY SCHEME?

The 4th Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization is now set to run from November 9th - 13th  in Qatar. Since government security forces have announced, recently that they cannot even guarantee the business lobbyists safety, let alone the safety! of journalists and demonstrators, it is likely that few outsiders will attend the meeting that starts at the end of this week. Further, since news coverage and early documentation following WTO meetings usually range from scant to non-existent, by holding the vote on or before November 16th, the administration virtually guarantees that members of the House will vote to abdicate their powers to control, by amendment, future legislation that they know nothing about, not even its direction.

ORGANIZATION OF  AMERICA  STATES (OAS) - FREE TRADE AREA OF THE AMERICAS  (FTAA)

There’s a lot more too it than just trade:

Besides smoothing the way for whatever negotiating round, if any, comes out of the WTO Ministerial Conference in Qatar, fast track, if passed, will smooth the way for passage of the OAS-FTAA package.

OAS - FTAA: a little known package that’s hazardous to your health.

The Law Loft reporter on the scene at the OAS Summit of the Americas, in April, reported back that reporters were barred from key meetings and media packs were designed like propaganda (i.e. to persuade without informing). Nevertheless a lot of interesting information and clues leaked out, that set us, at The Law Loft off on a research project that fan like a treasure hunt. After intensive study and documentation, collecting for months thereafter, we found out that:

The OAS is growing like a cancer. It is no longer just a U.S. dominated organization that interferes in the domestic matters or other countries within this hemisphere. The OAS has developed dozens of new international and affiliated organizations, from the mid 1990’s to the present. These organizations intend to take over a huge range of activities, including everyday matters from gun control to drafting legislation for the nation states;

Everything from gun control to food safety will be decided by opaque new bodies that aren't accountable to anyone. [E.g. Weapons control projects are now so far advanced that controls on how many weapons can be located within a nation are under consideration. Food safety harmonization and linkage to Codex Alimentarius are already under consideration. A new super national legislative body, as well as computer links among legislatures, so that they can harmonize legislation more easily are now in the works. The super national legislative body members aren't elected, they are selected.]:

The key element within the huge multi phased Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) trade agreements isn’t trade, its investment. That investment scheme, foreign direct investment (FDI) would:

• disempower citizens and labor in all member countries including the USA;

• disadvantage small and medium sized businesses in favor of the select few transnationals in all member countries, including the USA;

• would not promote growth and development in recipient countries (except in a very few cases);

• would leech investment funds out of United States enterprises in favor of placement in countries with cheaper more docile labor polls; and

• would promote the denationalization of key elements of public infrastructure, like power grids, not just in Latin America but within the USA as well.

CONTACT YOUR CONGRESSMAN/WOMAN NOW!

Tell them, left, right or center don’t vote yes on something you don’t understand, that disempowers Congress now and in the future.  We voted for you so that you could represent us and not so that they could give away that power to some vague opaque international and/or regional organizations that are now being formed. Do your Duty!

Tell them it has nothing to do with free trade and everything to do with stripping away our sovereignty and representative government!

Copyright, The Law Loft 2001

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